Emphasising that Aadhaar is completely "safe, secure and robust", the government on Monday slammed the opposition for allegedly trying to paint it as a "tragedy" to the country.

Replying to a short duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on Aadhaar - its implementation and implications, Minister for Information Technology and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad sought to allay the opposition's fears that biometric and demographic data collected for Aadhaar could be leaked and misused.

The UIDAI had recently blacklisted around 1,000 operators while FIRs ha been filed against 20 individuals in the last three months for malpractices such as charging for Aadhaar enrolment.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) also slapped a penalty of Rs 10,000 each on these erring operators besides removing them from its system.

“We have received certain complaints…we have a zero tolerance policy on overcharging. We have identified about 1,000 such operators since December 2016…in the last three months, these operators have been removed from our system and we are also imposing a penalty of Rs 10,000 each on them,” UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told PTI.